Monday, August 6, 2007

A couple weeks back, there was an article posted to Digg (here). The text is here:

Presidential candidate Ron Paul says the U.S. is in "great danger" of a staged terror attack or a Gulf of Tonkin style provocation while also warning that a major collapse of the American economy is on the horizon and could be precipitated by the bombing of Iran and the closure of the Persian Gulf.

Speaking to The Alex Jones Show, the Texas Congressman was asked his opinion on Cindy Sheehan's recent comments that the U.S. is in danger of a staged terror attack or a Gulf of Tonkin style provocation that will validate the Neo-Con agenda and lead to the implementation of the infrastructure of martial law that Bush recently signed into law via executive order, as well as public pronouncements from prominent officials that the West needs terrorism to save a doomed foreign policy. "I think we're in great danger of it," responded the Congressman, "We're in danger in many ways, the attack on our civil liberties here at home, the foreign policy that's in shambles and our obligations overseas and commitment which endangers our troops and our national defense."

"Every day we're in worse shape and right now there's an orchestrated effort to blame the Iranians for everything that's gone wrong in Iraq and we're quite concerned that the attack will be on Iran and that will jeopardize so many more of our troops, so I would say that we're in much greater danger than we even were four or five years ago," asserted Paul. The presidential candidate expressed his despair that the situation in Iraq will not change until there is a total collapse of the American economy. "There's no way we can afford what we're doing, whether it's domestic spending or the international spending and very few people talk about the real cost of this economically speaking....this is unsustainable and it will be a threat to our dollar," said Paul, adding that the onset of the meltdown could be sparked by the bombing of Iran and the closure of the Persian Gulf.

The Congressman added that the collapse was in its early stages with the major indication being a reduction in the living standard of middle class Americans but that "one single major world event" could change things overnight and precipitate a major downturn. Paul added that there had "not been a national discussion on monetary policy in many many years" and the increasingly bleak outlook for the U.S. economy was also bringing more attention to the solutions the Congressman has proposed for reducing the burden of the mammoth national deficit.

Paul said that national and world events, especially the degrading situation in Iraq, were attracting support for his presidential campaign due to his resolute position on embracing a non-interventionist foreign policy. The Congressman concluded by surmising that record lows in approval ratings for Bush, Cheney and Congress showed that, "The American people are alive and well and disgusted yet they haven't had good alternatives....it's justifiable, they are looking for true answers and options and quite frankly I think that's probably one of the reasons why our campaign is growing by leaps and bounds right now."

You might ask: Why do I put the text here instead of linking to it? Well, I'm getting there.

Something you have to understand: I have a problem with 'truthers' - those that believe that the US Government, or some vaguely-defined New World Order, was behind the murder of several thousand US citizens on 9/11. I ALSO hate the Paulbots - The ones that are fanatical supporters that treat him like a god, not his more reasonable supporters. Not surprisingly, these paths cross in a lot of users.

I take every chance I get to disprove them and bury their stories. Regardless of what you think of that, it's what I do.

So, that brings us back to the Digg article above. It is pointed out in the comments section by Xuvious (an avid Paul supporter,here) that everything may not be as it seems.

I wanted a definitive answer on Ron Paul's position. As much as I don't like him, I don't want his stances misrepresented. So, I sent an email to his campaign:

Hi,

I was wondering how accurate this articlehttp://www.infowars.com/articles/terror/ron_paul_us_in_great_danger_of_staged_terror.htmis. This is a very important issue to me, and getting it straight from the source hopefully will clear things up.

Thanks!

I attempted to ask the question as sincerely as possible, to increase my odds of getting answered. Well, 2.5 weeks went by, and no response. That's ok, because Ron Paul has clarified his stance on 'trutherism' several times since then. I had forgotten about it completely.

Well, something interesting happened today! I got a response:

Dear <redacted>,

Based upon your email and the link it included it is hard to tellwhich specific issue troubles you.

Please write back and inform us so that we can address your concern.

Regards,BrooksVolunteer

Wait...what? So, thinking I made a mistake, I clicked the link. I couldn't believe my eyes.

The article changed. Completely. And they didn't even take the time to redirect the link. So there you are, staring at a story about Paul's visit to Google with a URL that reads "ron_paul_us_in_great_danger_of_staged_terror"

Did Paul's campaign contact InfoWars and demand it change? Who knows? I certainly hope that's what happened.

But, whatever the case, InfoWars has been caught red-handed. The site has clearly changed from a very politically charged post implying Ron Paul supports the 'truth movement' to a (arguably) neutral article about his visit to Google.

-Hortnon

Update:This is the response I received from the Ron Paul campaign:

Dear <redacted>:Thanks for your note. Dr. Paul does not believe the US Government was behind several recent terrorist attacks including 9/11.

Sincerely,Matt Turvey, volunteer

Original infowars article mirrors herePrisonPlanet article hereGoogle cache of new page hereYahoo cache of new page hereLive cache of new page here